"Well, I've Never Read the Bible, but I'm Christian"

Anyone else run into this comment or one of its variations? As a former Christian I still have some interaction with current Christians, and I'm continually astounded at how many have never actually read the Bible. How can one know that Christianity is the truth without ever actually reading what Christianity is? Now I admit that as a Christian I had never bothered to sit down and read it either. Like many, I just read the parts the pastor pointed out to read. And when I finally did sit down and read all of it, I realized that I didn't believe any of it. I would say that reading the Bible is the main thing that set me on the road towards atheism. Not sure where I'm going with this. I'm just shocked that the Christians I know don't seem to see any problem with never having read the book they proclaim is the word of god. Is this just the Christians I know, or is this common?

I stopped believing after reading the Bible and finding that it made no sense. This seems fairly common once people start to read the book on their own. Without a pastor to tell you what to think or what a verse 'really' means it's plain to see that there's a lot of nonsense. There's the actual text, and then there's this whole separate tradition of what the text means. People end up only learning a piece at a time that illustrates a certain tradition, such as the doctrine of the trinity, instead of reading longer passages. They do this because the bible alone is not enough to explain the dogma, and ever since the first century Christians have had to come up with explanations of how such different ideas can be cobbled together. So Christians don't read the the bible because it's confusing and makes little sense without someone explaining and rationalizing it to you. They think it doesn't make sense because they don't know enough instead of realizing that the book itself is full of contradictions and ridiculous ideas.

I agree. After reading the Bible without any outside innuendos, I realized how stupid it was to believe it. I feel that many of these non Bible reading Christians sat down and read it with an open mind, many would see what they believe is trash. If they read it through the eyes the writers, most would see this.